Gun Violence

This special collection brings together evidence and insights from nonprofits, foundations, and research organizations working to understand the full impact of firearm use and gun violence in the US. By providing us with analyses of current state and federal laws as well as valuable data on suicides, homicides, accidents, and mass shootings, these organizations seek to inform sound public policy and to curb this ongoing public health epidemic.

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Since 1980, there have been at least 56 mass shootings (3 or more fatalities) where the shooter used high-capacity ammunition magazines. A total of 507 people were killed in these shootings and 497 were wounded. This number is likely a significant undercount of actual incidents since there is no consistent collection or reporting of this data. Even in many high-profile shootings information on magazine capacity is not released or reported.

A new Pew Research Center survey attempts to better understand the complex relationship Americans have with guns and how that relationship intersects with their policy views.
The survey finds that Americans have broad exposure to guns, whether they personally own one or not. At least two-thirds have lived in a household with a gun at some point in their lives. And roughly seven-in-ten – including 55% of those who have never personally owned a gun – say they have fired a gun at some point. Today, three-in-ten U.S. adults say they own a gun, and an additional 36% say that while they don't own one now, they might be open to owning a gun in the future. A third of adults say they don't currently own a gun and can't see themselves ever doing so.
To be sure, experiences with guns aren't always positive: 44% of U.S. adults say they personally know someone who has been shot, either accidentally or intentionally, and about a quarter (23%) say they or someone in their family have been threatened or intimidated by someone using a gun. Half see gun violence as a very big problem in the U.S. today, although gun owners and non-owners offer divergent views on this.
Gun owners and non-owners are also deeply divided on several gun policy proposals, but there is agreement on some restrictions, such as preventing those with mental illnesses and those on federal watch lists from buying guns. Among gun owners, there is a diversity of views on gun policy, driven in large part by party affiliation.
The nationally representative survey of 3,930 U.S. adults, including 1,269 gun owners, was conducted March 13 to 27 and April 4 to 18, 2017, using the Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel.

In the early morning hours of July 5, 2017, New York Police Department officer Miosotis Familia was ambushed as she sat in a marked NYPD command truck with her partner while providing additional security to a Bronx neighborhood after Fourth of July festivities. In an attack that police officials described as an assassination, Officer Familia was fatally shot in the head with a gun that had been stolen in Charleston, West Virginia, four years earlier. Less than a month earlier on the other side of the country, a UPS driver in San Francisco shot and killed three co-workers and injured two others using a gun that had been stolen in Utah. The shooter was also armed with a gun that had been stolen in Napa County, California.
Stolen guns pose a significant risk to community safety. Whether stolen from a gun store or an individual gun owner's collection, these guns often head straight into the illegal underground gun market, where they are sold, traded, and used to facilitate violent crimes. Gun theft is not a minor problem in the United States. According to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), during the four-year period from 2012 to 2015, nearly half a billion dollars' worth of guns were stolen from individuals nationwide, amounting to an estimated 1.2 million guns. Twenty-two thousand guns were stolen from gun stores during this same period. A gun is stolen in the U.S. every two minutes.
This problem does not affect all states equally. The rate and volume of guns stolen from both gun stores and private collections vary widely from state to state. From 2012 through 2015, the average rate of the five states with the highest rates of gun theft from private owners—Tennessee, Arkansas, South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Alabama—was 13 times higher than the average rate of the five states with the lowest rates—Hawaii, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and Massachusetts. Similarly, from 2012 through 2016, the average rate of the five states with the highest rates of guns stolen from gun stores was 18 times higher than the average rate the five states with the lowest rates.
Gun owners and dealers have a substantial responsibility to take reasonable measures to protect against theft and help ensure that their guns do not become part of this illegal inventory. This report analyzes data from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to provide state-by-state data on the frequency with which guns are stolen from licensed gun dealers and individual gun owners in communities across the country. It then offers a number of policy solutions to help prevent future gun thefts.

A push by the firearms industry and gun lobby to make it far easier for private citizens to buy and possess firearm silencers will only place the police and public at increased risk warns a new and expanded edition of the Violence Policy Center's (VPC) study Silencers: A Threat to Public Safety. In detailing this marketing push, the study also documents examples of lethal attacks and criminal activity involving silencers.

Despite broad interest in estimating the economic costs of gun violence at the national and individual levels, we know little about how local economies respond to increased gun violence, especially sharp and sudden increases (or surges) in gun violence. This brief summarizes findings that surges in gun violence can significantly reduce the growth of new retail and service businesses and slow home value appreciation. Higher levels of neighborhood gun violence can be associated with fewer retail and service establishments and fewer new jobs. Higher levels of gun violence were also associated with lower home values, credit scores, and homeownership rates.

Despite broad interest in estimating the economic costs of gun violence at the national and individual levels, we know little about how local economies respond to increased gun violence, especially sharp and sudden increases (or surges) in gun violence.
Our report found that surges in gun violence can significantly reduce the growth of new retail and service businesses and slow home value appreciation. Higher levels of neighborhood gun violence can be associated with fewer retail and service establishments and fewer new jobs. Higher levels of gun violence were also associated with lower home values, credit scores, and homeownership rates.
Interviews with local stakeholders (homeowners, renters, business owners, non-profits, etc.) in six cities across the United States confirmed that the findings match their experience. Business owners in neighborhoods that experience heightened gun violence reported additional challenges and costs, and residents and business owners alike asserted that gun violence hurts housing prices and drives people to relocate from or avoid moving to affected neighborhoods.
Some of the report's key findings include:
Impact of Gun Violence Surges on Local Business Growth, Home Values, Homeownership Rates, and Credit Scores across Cities
Gun homicide surges in census tracts reduced the growth rate of new retail and service establishments by 4 percent in Minneapolis, Oakland, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
Gun homicide surges in census tracts slowed home value appreciation by 3.9 percent in Baton Rouge, Minneapolis, Oakland, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
Gunshot surges in census tracts slowed home value appreciation by 3.6 percent in Oakland, Rochester, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
Neither gun homicide nor gunshot surges were observed to reduce homeownership rates or credit scores in these cities. Homeownership rates might not fall as quickly as home values in response to sudden surges in gun violence because selling a home and moving may take a long time or may simply not be feasible for some residents.
Relationships between Gun Violence and Business Outcomes, Home Values, Homeownership Rates, and Credit Scores within Cities
In Minneapolis, each additional gun homicide in a census tract in a given year was associated with 80 fewer jobs the next year.
In Oakland, each additional gun homicide in a census tract in a given year was associated with 5 fewer jobs in shrinking businesses the next year.
In Washington, DC, every 10 additional gunshots in a census tract in a given year were associated with 20 fewer jobs among new establishments, one less new business opening, and one more business closing the same year.
In San Francisco, there was no association between levels of gun violence in census tracts in a given year and business outcomes the next year.
Analysis of gun homicides in 2014 and home values, homeownership rates, and credit scores in 2015 demonstrated that each additional gun homicide in a census tract was associated with the following outcomes:
A $22,000 decrease in average home values in Minneapolis census tracts and a $24,621 decrease in Oakland census tracts.
A 20-point decrease in average credit scores in Minneapolis census tracts and a 9-point decrease in Oakland census tracts.
A 3 percent decrease in homeownership rates in Washington, DC, census tracts and a 1 percent decrease in Baton Rouge census tracts.
There were no associations between gun homicides in a given year and home values, homeownership rates, and credit scores the next year in Minneapolis, Oakland, San Francisco, or Washington, DC, census tracts from 2009 to 2014 or in Baton Rouge census tracts from 2011 to 2014.

Right now, every state gets to decide who can—and can't—carry a loaded, concealed gun in public within its borders. But if Congress mandates nationwide concealed carry reciprocity, every state would be forced to allow people with permits from other states (or from one of the 12 states that don't require permits at all) to carry concealed, even if those people never would have qualified to do so under that state's laws.

Our nation's schools should be safe havens for teaching and learning, free of crime and violence. Any instance of crime or violence at school not only affects the individuals involved, but also may disrupt the educational process and affect bystanders, the school itself, and the surrounding community (Brookmeyer, Fanti, and Henrich 2006; Goldstein, Young, and Boyd 2008).
Establishing reliable indicators of the current state of school crime and safety across the nation and regularly updating and monitoring these indicators are important in ensuring the safety of our nation's students. This is the aim of Indicators of School Crime and Safety.
This report is the 19th in a series of annual publications produced jointly by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Institute of Education Sciences (IES), in the U.S. Department of Education, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in the U.S. Department of Justice. This report presents the most recent data available on school crime and student safety. The indicators in this report are based on information drawn from a variety of data sources, including national surveys of students, teachers, principals, and postsecondary institutions. Sources include results from the School-Associated Violent Death Surveillance System, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, the Department of Justice, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the National Crime Victimization Survey and School Crime Supplement to that survey, sponsored by BJS and NCES, respectively; the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, sponsored by the CDC; the Schools and Staffing Survey, School Survey on Crime and Safety, Fast Response Survey System, ED Facts , and Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–11, all sponsored by NCES; the Supplementary Homicide Reports, sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Campus Safety and Security Survey and Civil Rights Data Collection, both sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education; and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, sponsored by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. The most recent data collection for each indicator varied by survey, from 2009 to 2015. Each data source has an independent sample design, data collection method, and questionnaire design, or is the result of a universe data collection. Findings described in this report with comparative language (e.g., higher, lower, increase, and decrease) are statistically significant at the .05 level. Additional information about methodology and the datasets analyzed in this report may be found in appendix A.
This report covers topics such as victimization, teacher injury, bullying and cyber-bullying, school conditions, fights, weapons, availability and student use of drugs and alcohol, student perceptions of personal safety at school, and criminal incidents at postsecondary institutions. Indicators of crime and safety are compared across different population subgroups and over time. Data on crimes that occur away from school are offered as a point of comparison where available.

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